Mark Schwetz, stands outside the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco with the group Occupy SF, Thursday Oct. 6, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif. Schwetz lost his home in foreclosure.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Mark Schwetz, stands outside the Federal Reserve Bank of San...

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Demonstrators with Act Now To Stop War and End Racism from Friday's earlier "die-in" at the New Federal Building join protesters with Occupy SF outside of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 7, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

Demonstrators with Act Now To Stop War and End Racism from Friday's...

Protesters with the group Occupy SF organize outside of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 7, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

Protesters with the group Occupy SF organize outside of the Federal...

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Protesters appeal to passing motorists during OccupySF outside the Federal Reserve Bank on Saturday in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 8, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

Protesters appeal to passing motorists during OccupySF outside the...

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Lindsay Millichap makes protest signs as she and the group Occupy SF protest outside the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco with the Thursday Oct. 6, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Lindsay Millichap makes protest signs as she and the group Occupy...

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A lone sunflower sits amid the belongs of the protesters of the group Occupy SF outside the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where the group set camp yesterday and continued to protest, Thursday Oct. 6, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

A lone sunflower sits amid the belongs of the protesters of the...

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Felicia Fugate blows bubbles at the passing cars while the group Occupy SF protest outside the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco with the Thursday Oct. 6, 2011, in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

Felicia Fugate blows bubbles at the passing cars while the group...

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Protesters with the group Occupy SF organize outside of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 7, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

Protesters with the group Occupy SF organize outside of the Federal...

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SFPD Sergeant H. Yee requests protesters with Occupy SF to clear the sidewalks of food and personal belongings outside of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 7, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

SFPD Sergeant H. Yee requests protesters with Occupy SF to clear...

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Protesters with the group Occupy SF organize outside of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 7, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

Protesters with the group Occupy SF organize outside of the Federal...

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Demonstrators with Act Now To Stop War and End Racism from Friday's earlier "die-in" at the New Federal Building join protesters with Occupy SF outside of the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco, CALIF on Oct. 7, 2011.

Photo: Tim Maloney, The Chronicle

Demonstrators with Act Now To Stop War and End Racism from Friday's...

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Protesters march down California St. during an OccupySF rally on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, in San Francisco. The crowd numbered about 800 at its peak.

Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle

Protesters march down California St. during an OccupySF rally on...

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White collar workers watch as OccupySF protesters pass their Market St. office on Wednesday, Oct. 5, 2011, in San Francisco.

The protest known as Occupy San Francisco is Mark Schwetz's first demonstration. After watching protesters mass against Wall Street excesses in New York last week, the soft-spoken 36-year-old carpenter's apprentice wanted to share his story of how a middle-class guy lost his home.

Schwetz stood Thursday in a light drizzle in front of the Federal Reserve building on San Francisco's Market Street, holding a plain white piece of cardboard with a handwritten plea: "Return our homes."

As the Occupy Wall Street movement expands across the nation, including to Oakland's downtown plaza Monday, supporters hope to make it more politically powerful by focusing on real-life stories of people such as Schwetz.

His frustration and anger at the financial system, and politicians of both parties who do little to reform it, mirror the reason others are demonstrating in dozens of cities from New York to Salt Lake City. They proclaim themselves the 99 percent of Americans overrun by the wealthiest 1 percent, who control more than 40 percent of the nation's wealth.

Spotlighting outrage

Almost two-thirds of Americans surveyed in recent polls support raising taxes on those earning more than $1 million a year. Last week, Senate Democrats and President Obama supported such a tax, less than a year after the president backed an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

The rage behind the anti-Wall Street protests is similar to the Tea Party's backlash two years ago against giant government bailouts of big corporations in response to the financial crisis, some pundits have observed, although the new movement is dominated by liberals instead of conservatives.

"The real challenge," said Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the liberal Institute for Policy Studies who studies social movements, is making the revolt against the accumulation of wealth "happen politically." The 3-week-old Occupy movement must spotlight the outrage of folks such as Schwetz to build a movement big enough to succeed in making tax-the-rich proposals become law, analysts say.

A few months after Schwetz purchased a home in Petaluma in 2004, his subprime mortgage payments doubled. For five years, he poured almost all of his earning as a FedEx driver into his house payments, until he couldn't afford it any longer. He rented rooms to friends, but "it didn't help much," he said.

Schwetz's lender refused to renegotiate the borrowing terms. Two years ago, he sold his house, which had lost about half its original value of $400,000, for less than he owed on the mortgage - a practice known as a short sale. Then injuries to his back forced him to quit his job. Now, he's trying to restart his life with a new career in carpentry.

In the process, he had to drain his 401(k) and lost his health insurance.

"I'm angry and I'm frustrated, and it's really unfair what's been done," said Schwetz, who now lives in Berkeley. There is no shortage of stories like his, and many of those impoverished by the nation's financial meltdown live far from where demonstrators are gathered in San Francisco.

Census figures released last month show that 15.4 million Americans are living below the poverty line in suburban areas outside of major metropolitan cities. Of the top 10 suburban-exurban areas with the highest poverty rates, four are in California: Stockton, Modesto, Bakersfield and Fresno. All have been hit hard by the mortgage foreclosure crisis.

'This is affecting everyone'

But most of those people have not joined the growing protests, said Deirdre Anglin, 40, of Oakland, an executive assistant for a San Francisco arts nonprofit who is helping to organize the Occupy Oakland event in Frank Ogawa Plaza. "We need more people out here like me," she said. "This is affecting everyone."

Critics of the fledgling movement dismiss it as the rambling of the usual protesters - a cacophony of liberal causes broadcasting a scattershot message. It's much of the same language that was used to dismiss the antiwar movement a decade ago when the United States invaded Afghanistan, Bennis said.

Conservative commentator Sean Hannity told one Wall Street demonstrator he interviewed on his radio show that she "does not believe in freedom." But two years ago, Hannity hosted a fledgling Tea Party demonstration, where protesters criticized the federal bank bailout among other government spending and tax policies they deemed extreme.

Presidential candidates haven't been much kinder to the movement. Herman Cain, the millionaire former CEO of Godfather's Pizza, said: "Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich. Blame yourself."

Jason Mark, who organized war protests in the Bay Area and across the nation a decade ago, understands the challenge of expanding a movement in its nascent stage. TV coverage at the time focuses on street conflicts between demonstrators and police rather than the reasons people were on the streets.

While several major labor unions and celebrities including "Austin Powers" star Mike Myers joined the Occupy Wall Street protests in recent days, much of the movement is being led, like the early Tea Party rebellion, by a disparate group of people driven by their frustration at the system.

Tea Party as role model

Some liberal activists credit the Tea Party as a role model for what the Occupy Wall Street movement could become. Two years ago - before being embraced by the Republican Party, promoted by Fox News and funded by various conservative organizations - the Tea Party began as a bunch of people angry and frustrated that the federal government had bailed out big banks and major auto companies.

At first they were criticized for having a scattershot message and for their supporters who dressed in odd costumes and used incendiary language. The Tea Partiers were so mistrustful of politicians that only one was invited to speak at the Tea Party's first major California rally in April 2009 - Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Elk Grove (Sacramento County).

Less than two years later, a few dozen Tea Party-friendly Republicans newly elected to the House are driving the debate in Washington. Among those who have studied how they've organized is Van Jones, the Bay Area activist who resigned as a White House green jobs adviser after Tea Party activists and commentator Glenn Beck criticized some of his past statements and affiliations as an activist.

"I'm not mad at the Tea Party," Jones said at a gathering of liberal activists this week in Washington. "I'm not mad at them for being so loud. I'm mad at us for having been so quiet the past two years."

Protest profiles

For a look at some of the people who say they are part of the 99 percent of Americans overrun by the nation's wealthiest 1 percent, go to links.sfgate.com/ZLDK.